Jenkins Needs You - Pull Request Corner at Jenkins World 2017

The Jenkins changelog pages (LTS and weekly) gather user experiences with specific Jenkins versions. You can help other Jenkins users by clicking one of the weather icons in the LTS changelog (or the weekly changelog) for the release you’re using. Changelog feedback from weekly releases helps the release team select the long term support version. Changelog feedback from LTS releases helps other users prepare to upgrade.

It takes less than a minute, and helps the community (which will ultimately help you).

In five minutes or less, you can help other Jenkins users.

For example:

If you have ten minutes, you can learn something new and share what you learned.

Liam Newman has created the "Jenkins Minute" video series. They are brief video segments focusing on specific Jenkins functionality. Choose a video, watch it, and share what you learned on social media.

The Jenkins bug tracker contains thousands of bugs. Reviewing, duplicating, and clarifying bug reports takes time. When maintainers are reviewing, duplicating, and clarifying bug reports, they are not fixing bugs, and they are not adding new capabilities.

You can help maintainers by reviewing and duplicating a bug report that matters to you. A comment on a bug report is especially helpful when it confirms you’ve been able to duplicate the bug. It is even more helpful if your verification includes the steps you took and how they differ from the original report.

A bug report which has been duplicated, and includes clear instructions, is much more likely to receive maintainer attention. Help yourself and others by duplicating bugs that matter to you.

The Jenkins documentation includes user documentation (guided tour and handbook) and developer documentation (tutorial, how-to guides, and reference). You can help the documentation by describing something important to you clearly and completely.

Refer to the instructions for documentation contributors to see how easy it is to help.

If English is not your native language, you can help with Jenkins localization. Jenkins is used worldwide, and many users will benefit from translations. Considering the rapid and continuing evolution of Jenkins, it is no surprise that there is plenty to translate. Refer to the internationalization guide for instructions to help you contribute translations.

Local groups around the world meet often for Jenkins presentations, discussions, and demonstrations. Organizing a Jenkins Area Meetup will introduce you to other users, and will let you explore new ways to benefit from Jenkins. The team at jenkinsci-jam@googlegroups.com is ready to support your JAM with stickers, t-shirts, and more.

The Jenkins plugin ecosystem covers a wide range of areas. Jenkins plugin maintainers come from many different backgrounds, with many different interests. Often, a plugin maintainer may find that they want to do something different on the project, or they may leave the project. When a plugin maintainer is no longer able to maintain a plugin, they can place it for adoption.

Plugins placed for adoption range from very specific use cases (node stalker plugin) to very general use cases (Subversion plugin).

Maintaining an orphan plugin is a great way to contribute to the project. Follow the instructions to "Adopt a Plugin".

All those techniques (and more) are available on the Jenkins participate page.

Look for the "Jenkins Needs You" poster at Jenkins World, and come talk to us about the ways you can learn new things, address your concerns, and help Jenkins.